Sunday, 24 June 2018

When two mass movements clash

Last week saw
leading lights in one mass movement, the Labour party, attack
elements of another mass movement, those who want to remain in the
EU. What led to this attack seemed to be posters
issued by an organisation called OFOC
depicting John McDonnell in the pocket of arch Brexiter Jacob
Rees-Mogg. My own view is that these poster were a waste of money and
hardly worth bothering with. But leading lights in the Labour
movement tried to suggest to grass roots Remain supporters that
they are being used as a way to attack Corbyn, as here
for example.

As it happens I have
quite recently suggested that some Remain campaigners risk the danger
that their message is sounding very similar to the numerous
anti-Corbyn attacks you can find throughout the media. For example suggesting
that the only thing in the way of stopping Brexit is Corbyn (ludicrous) and that
therefore he has to go (won't happen). As the only chance of a vote on
the final deal is if Labour supports it such a message is positively counterproductive.

However the attacks
from Bastini, Mason and others took a different tack, listing in
great detail how OFOC was connected to, and possibly funded by,
certain Tory and LibDem figures. This was the basis of the ‘being
used’ claim. There are two big problems here. First, Remain is a
cross party movement. So what exactly is the big deal with
establishing all these links? So what, you might say. Second,
Remainers have every reason to be critical of Labour policy, which is
now clearly not to stay in the EU.

The days of
triangulation are over. We now know that the Labour leadership wants
a negotiated deal with the EU that has some safeguards on
nationalisation etc, and for some MPs at least some limits to free
movement. As the great majority of Labour members and voters support
staying in the EU, this is a difficult position for the Labour
leadership to take. Labour are therefore acutely vulnerable. Indeed as there is a chance that Labour might back a people's vote but May never will, it is sensible that Remainers now concentrate any pressure on the Labour leadership.

Picking a fight with
some Remainers by suggesting they are, knowingly or not, just an
anti-Corbyn front because they attack Labour on Brexit seems to both miss the point and to be terrible
politics. I guess it can be what happens when two mass movements with considerable overlap in terms of membership clash. Of course any Brexit negotiated by Corbyn would be less
harmful than the Brexit May might be able to negotiate, and Labour
still might vote against the final deal and support a referendum on
it, but until Labour do start saying No Brexit is better than May’s
Brexit Labour are vulnerable and have to accept that Remainers will
try and put pressure on them.

All of which is of
course a minor sideshow to what will be the main story of the next
few months: will May be able to negotiate a deal with the EU? Labour
are completely irrelevant in answering this question. The answer will
depend on whether May will finally break with the Brexiters, and how
much these Brexiters react to this rejection. The deal that will be done, which involves at a minimum being in the
Customs Union and the Single Market for goods, is anathema to most of
the Brexiters based on their past behaviour. That deal, as I have argued before, represents the
almost complete failure of the Brexiter project.

The Brexiters have
two choices. They can try and make it as hard as possible for May
such that she fails to get a deal, and hope that the UK leaves with
No Deal as a result. Although there is much you can criticise in May
as a Prime Minister, her stubbornness probably means she will
not allow her deal to be sabotaged in this way, but that will
probably not stop the Brexiters trying. The second choice Brexiters
have is to park their displeasure at the deal until we leave in 2019,
and hope that they can achieve further breaks from Europe
subsequently, perhaps by getting a Brexiter as Conservative party
leader. The problem with this strategy is that time is not on their
side: demographics, losing the Mail, and people seeing how the UK
steadily falls behind the rest of the EU are just some of the reasons
why.

There is no doubt
that May will do what she can to get a deal, and I suspect the
Brexiters will not have the support or the will to stop her once she
stops appeasing them. Which leaves Labour in a dangerous position,
where they may alienate Leavers by voting against the deal, and
alienate Remainers for not supporting Remain. The days when they
could keep both groups happy by triangulating, and almost win a
general election, are over. They cannot be crazy enough to vote for or abstain on the final deal, because then they become complicit in all the
economic harm that Brexit will do, as well as alienating the majority
of its own members and voters. It would mean four years of Labour losing Leave voters to the Conservatives (as the Brexit press would spin anything other than a vote for the deal as Labour opposing Brexit), and Remain
voters to the LibDems or Greens.

One thing we have
learnt in the last week is that most of the handful of Tory rebels will not have the
courage to vote against any deal May makes. (No deal is another
matter.) So Labour will lose the parliamentary vote on the final
deal. Labour are not in government, and the deal is being done now, so what they would want to do in government is irrelevant. That means that they have little to lose by backing the popular people’s vote
against May’s deal as well as voting against that deal. No Brexit is better than May’s Brexit. That
way, they allow the two movements to march as one.Postscript 27/06/18Conversations with some Labour party activists both before and after this post suggest that Labour has to focus on winning over Leave voters in traditional Labour held constituencies, and so has to appear to back Brexit where it can. There is a danger that they are taking for granted many who voted for them in 2017 because they thought Labour would stop Brexit, and still do (See, for example, this poll in January 2018, where only 19% of Labour voters think Labour is pro-Brexit.) There is a danger that we are seeing a repeat of what happened over austerity in 2015: Labour taking for granted that anti-austerity voters would vote for them, and at the same time failing to win over pro-austerity voters with talk of being 'tough on the deficit'. Much the same happened with immigration.

10 comments:

To state the obvious, there are two reasons for thinking we should get ready for no deal; firstly, that we the best outcome is to leave with no deal, and secondly, that preparing for no deal is the best way to getting a good deal. Both those groups of people will behave identically until the deal is revealed. You may be surprised at how many you thought were in group 1 actually turn out to be in group 2.

I would just add that those who say whatever we do will make no difference to the EU as we are either in the EU or just a third country need to familiarise themselves with Article 8 in the Lisbon Treaty which states "the Union may conclude specific agreements with the countries concerned" countries concerned being neighbouring ones, i.e. the UK.

SWL could be underestimating the commitment and courage of Tory Remainers. Next month's vote on the CU is far more important than any shenanigans on the 'People's vote', which, in any case, could well generate more problems than it would solve, and is almost certain not to happen anyway.

It is a bit like concentrating on Oxford Union politics in the bar rather than the latest cutting edge research on trade policy: the latter, sooner or later will have more impact on people's lives.

"That means that they have little to lose by backing the popular people’s vote against May’s deal as well as voting against that deal"

Maybe I misunderstand and you wording confused me. But it sounds like you think Labour should vote down a deal in the Commons even though "winning" this means a hard Brexit by default, because Article 50 was triggered. And that you think the parliamentary arithmetic will be safe. I think that's crazy!

As for "picking a fight with some Remainers ... seems to both miss the point and to be terrible politics" I agree.

However please consider that various Remainers like yourself have been committing the same error (and some have been knowingly smearing) with Leave by "establishing all these links" with Legatum, Russia, "the hard right" (in your terms), the press barons, UKIP, those who don't respect "pluralist democracy"(!), etc. The way to attack Leave was on the issues, without any trickery like the Treasury forecast, and not ad hominem. Most Leave voters don't want an ultra-Thatcherite Brexit, and they know they do not. Therefore, it preached to the converted and failed to convert Leavers.

One thing we have learnt in the last week is that most of the handful of Tory rebels will not have the courage to vote against any deal May makes. (No deal is another matter.) So Labour will lose the parliamentary vote on the final deal. Labour are not in government, and the deal is being done now, so what they would want to do in government is irrelevant. That means that they have little to lose by backing the popular people’s vote against May’s deal as well as voting against that deal. No Brexit is better than May’s Brexit. That way, they allow the two movements to march as on

The simple fact is that those MPs that are campaigning for staying in the EU use the EU debate to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and the reasons for that are obvious. They have stated in the words of Peter Mandelson that they will work tirelessly day and night to bring him down.

So in other words they will jump on any bandwagon to achieve that end.

This article about one of the leading OFOC people demonstrates the duplicity of these people: https://skwawkbox.org/2018/06/21/video-ofocs-milligan-claims-corbyn-supporter-status-on-bbcdp-really/

Videos are an important tool to expose the lies of people intent on misreprenting the facts. These people with leading connections with other organisations are serving a purpose over and above that they publicly declare.

Simon you are a dedicated EU supporter and therefore paint a picture that ignores the Neo-Liberal agenda within the very structure of the EU. It was no accident that the EU carried out secret negotiations with the United States over the TTIP trade deal which would have enshrined in law the ability to sue any government that put up barriers to their ability to make profits.

The EU is just another Neo-Liberal, free enterprise, free trade, freedom of movement of capital corporate organisation and works against the interests of its own people, just look at how it treated Greece and yet bails out the corrupt European Banks with unlimited QE.

You have stated yourself, that the Labour Party are not negotiating Brexit, the Tories are, who with the help of the bought and sold DUP can overide any decision any opposition party chooses to make. That said Brexit is a Tory construct and those right wing Labour MPs and supporters that attack Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party only serve the interests of the Tories. Some MPs have openly declared that they are happier working with the Tories such Jess Philips, noting that there have also been secret talks with these so called rebels to form a centre party, which of course is an oxymoron for anther New Tory Party.

Look at the riots in Paris, Jeremy Corbyn is not responsible for that, But European Neo-Liberal politicians are.

The DUP are not bought and sold by the Tories over this; the DUP campaigned for Remain all by themselves, including buying print ads in London. Their 2017 manifesto also said they wanted Brexit to go ahead.

Holding a referendum on the deal may be popular, but what are the options on the ballot paper? I think you're saying, Accept the deal, or, Stop Brexit. What if the question is Accept the deal, or, Hard Brexit? In which case if your side loses then we will crash out without a deal.

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